


Lonesome Cavalcade

by StarsInMyDamnEyes



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Attempts at humour, Banter, Entirely too much metaphor for what it is, Gen, Geralt is mildly amused, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I actually wrote something!!! I’m shocked too, Mage Jaskier | Dandelion, No Post-Mountain Geralt Vilification, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Short One Shot, idk man I’m just vibing, may be mildly ooc, no beta we die like stregobor fucking should have, post episode 6, supposed to have feelings but then i kept trying to be funny, two bois having conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsInMyDamnEyes/pseuds/StarsInMyDamnEyes
Summary: He’d only stopped for the night, and when he woke up, late enough that he’d not been awake to see tell-tale orange hues of the dawn bleed across the horizon, dragging with them the storm-clouds and rainfall of the day- when he woke up, the first thing he saw was the slightly lopsided grin of his one-time, one-sided friend, their eyes meeting over a fire-pit filled with embers long-since turned cold.“Fancy meeting you here, Geralt.”“Jaskier.”
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 23
Kudos: 67





	Lonesome Cavalcade

**Author's Note:**

> Asjdhfkhjadshgkjasdfhgkj can you believe i actually posted yeah me neither

The third time Geralt saw Jaskier after the dragon hunt - the first being an easy night of drinking, and the second being a distant view at some competition or other in Oxenfurt - the third time, it had been a tad bit more strange.

He’d only stopped for the night, and when he woke up, late enough that he’d not been awake to see tell-tale orange hues of the dawn bleed across the horizon, dragging with them the storm-clouds and rainfall of the day- when he woke up, the first thing he saw was the slightly lopsided grin of his one-time, one-sided friend, their eyes meeting over a fire-pit filled with embers long-since turned cold.

“Fancy meeting you here, Geralt.”

“Jaskier.”

“I’ve been known to go by such an anonym, yes.”

“Anonym?”

Jaskier smirked at that. “Yes, Geralt, it’s a term referring to a nom de plume-”

“I know what an anonym is,” Geralt ground out, feeling suddenly wrong-footed, too hostile and too standoffish and entirely too unfamiliar. “The word choice is strange.”

“It really isn’t.”

Pulling himself to his feet and glaring just a little at the smug little bastard that had appeared at his campsite, Geralt growled, just a little, at the very back of his throat. Not entirely silent, but quiet-like. “You keep to your opinion, then. I’ll keep to mine.”

“Oh, Geralt, how I’ve missed you!” Jaskier directed his gaze to the heavens then, and Geralt couldn’t help but feel slighted. “Really, who else would be agreeing to disagree on this fine Tuesday morn?”

“Anyone who’s not petty and stubborn enough to argue a moot point, first thing in the morning.”

Jaskier scoffed. “More like, anyone too dull to take much of an interest in the world around them at all, but, it is what it is. You keep to your opinion, and I’ll keep to mine, isn’t that how you said it?”

“Please, feel free to.”

“Aw, you’re no fun.”

“Your definition of fun is-” Geralt growled again, a tad louder this time, and glanced up at the sky. “Jaskier. Why are you here?”

“What, can’t I just catch up with an old friend?”

“I’m not your friend.”

“Poppycock,” Jaskier said, easily, waving a hand in a manner more dismissive than anything Geralt had managed to catch from even the haughtiest of nobles whenever he upset them, whether that be by existing a little, or breathing a minor amount, or criticising them for their copious amounts of incompetence just a tad.

It was at time like these, really, that Geralt found himself realising that the man before him was, in fact, a performer - his easy-going openness as much of a façade as Geralt’s own futile stoicism.

“Poppycock, Geralt,” Jaskier repeated, with such weight to the words that one could almost be forgiven for finding them to be meaningful. “Maybe you don’t consider me to be your friend, but I consider you to be mine, and that’s not something that you get to have any say in.”

There were many responses to that - yes he did, friendship was mutualistic, this was pathetic, this was old - but none that Geralt particularly wanted to voice.

“You see me once every decade,” he said instead, and Jaskier snorted.

“Maybe you’re just best in small doses.”

Geralt huffed, a quiet dismissal, and the air around them - heavy with that sort of weighty chill that stood seemed to come at the cusp of a storm - the very winds seemed to sober as the smile faded from Jaskier’s face... or maybe, Geralt was just lonely enough to pretend like it did.

“I came looking for you,” Jaskier said, quietly. “It’s probably not news to you, what with the whole Nilfgaard and Ciri situation requiring it a little - how is she, by the way? - but you’ve become quite a difficult man to find, and I guess... I supposed, I just wanted the company of someone who was just- well. Thing is, Geralt, everyone’s got their own agenda these days, you know? And you- you don’t.”

Jaskier sat back, tilting his head in a manner that seemed as youthful as he looked - appearances, appearances - morose and contemplative, and wholly unexpected. “It’s what I like about you most actually, that where everyone else, all the rest of us an ulterior motive, you’re just... blunt, and straightforward, and honest, you know?”

There was nothing that sprang to Geralt’s mind that could be said in response to that, so he just-

“Ciri’s doing well.”

It fell on deaf ears, as submerged in his own thoughts as Jaskier was - surely, only the faintest echo of meaning managed to make its way below water.

“You know,” Jaskier said, looking up at the sky, glittering grey-blue eyes matching the sky, tone-for-tone in an almost eerie manner, “I thought for sure you’d have forgotten me, by now. Then again, I also thought I’d be dead in a ditch by now, so there is that.”

Geralt blinked, as the world twisted around them, Jaskier’s revelation illuminating the scenario, making clear the sphere of revelations they’d led themselves into, a liminal space of not-quite-the-usual twisted into the folds of normalcy that Geralt had been too busy brushing out of the way.

He didn’t quite know what to say, to that, so he said nothing.

It was quite alright, that way, because Jaskier seemed only too content to fill the gaps he left, in any case.

“I came to find you,” he continued, smiling sadly. “Because I wanted to sit with my back to someone who I knew wouldn’t put a knife in it. I mean, sure, it’s the business, tricks of the trade, and all that, but I’m- I’m tired, you know? Sleeping with one eye open is always so restless.”

Geralt creased his brow - the picture that was being painted was discordant with Jaskier’s self-composed leitmotif, but he’d said it himself. Days of presence for decades of absence; what he didn’t know was the ocean ebbing at the shores of the beaches that Jaskier had shown him around.

And then, there was also the part where it hadn’t been his business, up until the point where Jaskier had decided that it suddenly _was_.

“So you decided to look for me.”

“Very astute, Geralt,” and the dry remark fell flat a little, and Geralt got the feeling that this was novel ground for the both of them.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Jaskier.”

“Right,” he said, and deflated a little. “You see, the logic all made sense in my head on the way here, but I’m fairly certain I’m regretting my decision.”

If the circumstances were at all akin to the normal ones - insofar as there were a set of normal circumstances with Jaskier, because doubtless, the fucking bard always managed to make himself and the very environment around him the exception to whatever precedent _he himself had set_ \- then, of course, Geralt would have allowed himself to snap, given that it was all rather vexing, but this time-

He stood and grabbed Jaskier’s arm as he got up to leave.

“Stay.”

Jaskier laughed, at that. “Nosy little bastard, aren’t you?”

“Can’t fault me,” and the retort was like a reflex on his lips, “not when you’ve finally decided to be interesting.”

“Oh, bugger you, you bastard.”

Geralt smirked. “Only if you buy me dinner first.”

Snorting, Jaskier allowed Geralt to guide him back, sitting back down across the fire that had died many hours ago, and with a sigh, leant back into his unforthcoming explanation.

“So, this may or may not come as something of a surprise,” Jaskier said, confirming that he was _far_ too forward in assuming that he was any manner of unsurprising at all, “but I’m afraid there are secrets I’ve kept from the world at large, in order to-”

“Elf,” Geralt threw out bluntly, the somber air of the conversation dissipating as Jaskier voiced his fears.

“What?”

“Assassin. Royalty. Spy. Witcher. Mage.”

“Whoah, whoah, whoah, Geralt, slow down,” Jaskier interrupted, running a hand through his hair. _“What?”_

“Fae. Siren. Higher Vampire.”

“No, no, you’ve gone past it, but,” Jaskier stared at Geralt, eyes wide open, the perfect picture of slack-jawed surprise. _“What?”_

Geralt shrugged. “I can count the things I know about you on one had. You have room for plenty of secrets.”

“Oh- fuck _off_ , how did you know?”

“The way you were talking. Deductive reasoning. Narrowed it down to all nine-plus of my guesses.”

“Show-off.” 

Geralt grinned back at him.

A beat passed in silence, and the moment broke - with a crash of thunder, the first droplet of rain fell from the sky, and Jaskier doubled over in half-manic laughter, revelations set to the tune of the oncoming storm.

And, with that, the final traces of any kind of illusion of tension vanished into the wind.

Geralt simply shared a look with Roach.

Jaskier pulled himself back up again, and Geralt did his level best to convey a sarcastic _take your time_ , in the form of a meaningful look that Jaskier was entirely too distracted to parse.

“Aren’t you going to ask what?” he said, prompting a pointed eyebrow-raise from Geralt.

“If I recall correctly, you were just telling me.”

“Right, right, I suppose I was, wasn’t I?”

“You definitely were,” Geralt confirmed, most helpfully.

“Oh, shut up, you- I’m a mage. Trained at Ban Ard, wandered off into the world to get away from all that bullshit and still managed to find myself an Aretuza girl to make me look inadequate by comparison... It’s a Ban Ard tradition.”

Amused, Geralt grinned across the fire-pit. “Are you talking about Yennefer?”

“No, I mean Roach,” Jaskier sniffed. “Of course I’m talking about Yennefer.”

“Did Ban Ard give you that inferiority complex, too?”

“Inferiority- you _arse!_ It’s a joke! Did you lose your sense of humour whilst I was out?”

Geralt smirked at him, quietly enjoying the fact that he’d managed to get a rise out of the bard so easily - he was, far more than most of his acquaintances, incredibly fun to get a rise out of, as childish as such a thing may have been.

It didn’t take Jaskier very long to figure out that Geralt was winding him up, as evidenced by him oh-so-maturely deciding to stick his tongue out at Geralt, and flip him the bird, whilst he was at it.

Geralt’s smirk only widened, at that.

“The good news is, I’ve found your sense of humour, you prick.”

“Monumental,” Geralt deadpanned. “Perhaps you’ll one day uncover yours- that is, if that doesn’t turn out to be a quest to discover something that doesn't exist.”

Jaskier pouted. “Nope, never mind, it’s gone again. Terrible jab, Geralt, not even a passing grade.”

“If that’s your opinion, I must be doing something right.”

Pulling up a clod of sodden earth from the ground and hurling it - mildly ineffectually - at Geralt, Jaskier stuck his tongue out once again.

“You’re a prick, Geralt, is what you are.”

“So you’ve said.”

“Prick,” Jaskier repeated. “Anyways, now that that’s over and done with, can I travel with you?”

And wasn’t that the million-oren question, the whole reason that Jaskier had sought him out in the first place? The bard fancied himself amiable company, an assertion with which Geralt was reluctantly forced to at least somewhat agree with, and it was no secret that travelling through the forests, especially in wartime, would be slightly more bearable with company-

Geralt pretended to mull it over for a moment, before replying.

“No.”

**Author's Note:**

> Call me a rude name on tumblr @stars-in-my-damn-eyes
> 
> If you comment i will give you my firstborn
> 
> “Lonesome Cavalcade”, featuring neither lonesomeness nor cavalcades who gives a shit, it’s gone 2am on Monday and i have school


End file.
